


Who Makes the Laws?

by Grundy



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23951386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: On Finwë, Míriel, and Indis.
Relationships: Finwë/Indis/Míriel Þerindë | Míriel Serindë
Comments: 14
Kudos: 35





	Who Makes the Laws?

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as meta-esque musings on Tumblr, and finished somewhere more like fic. Finally getting around to posting it somewhere other than there.

When the elves first awoke in Cuivienen, there were no “Laws and Customs”. Everything was new to them, and there were no rules but whatever they decided on for themselves.

Some elves, like Indis and Ingwë, woke up feeling kinship to other elves, and eventually the words ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ were made for elves like them. Others, like Míriel, awoke to find themselves without such close kin, but counted it no great loss, for the world was wondrous and the stars fair.

In those days, there was nothing to say an elf could not be drawn to more than one other elf as a mate, any more than there was to say that mates had to be of opposite sex. How elves chose to pair up was regarded as their own business, and no one gave much thought to it. When Finwë, Míriel, and Indis declared themselves mates despite there being three of them instead of two, no one quibbled, unique though it was. They were happy, and all was well.

The elves encountered the Hunter well before they encountered the Valar, and people began to disappear. The first time one of those disappeared died was a shock unprecedented in the elven experience - the mate of the missing elf knew immediately that something terrible had happened, that their mate was simply not there anymore. The entire community rallied around the bereaved survivor, and tried as best they could to help them carry on. When, eventually, the survivor re-married, no one was much surprised. It was clear that after such a catastrophic event they needed the support of a close relationship, the comfort only a mate could give, and at that time there was no expectation that the dead would ever return.

Then Oromë arrived, and eventually took three volunteer ‘ambassadors’ to Aman to show them what the Valar were offering the elves. Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë returned and related with awe and longing what they had seen, and how this was very different than the Hunter. Some elves were skeptical, but others were convinced, and ultimately they all made their choices, to Journey or to Refuse. (Though the ones who refused would have said Remain.)

When the elves of the Journey arrive in Aman, they are surprised that their Valarin hosts have Opinions - which turn into rules, which eventually become Laws and Customs - about the proper structure of relationships and what they term ‘marriage’. It should be one male and one female, and it should last for the lifetime of Arda, because the dead will eventually return. (It was not Eru’s design that elves should marry more than once. Somehow they overlooked that it was also not Eru’s design that elves should die.)

This was a shock to the elves whose marriages don’t fit in that narrow box. Obviously some cannot comply, and quietly carry on. A rapidly expanding elven society manages to overlook those instances of same-sex couples living together as ‘friends’. The younger generation for the most part don’t realize, because when it comes to these couples, conversation simply slides smoothly away under the subtle guidance of those old enough to know that the pair are more than merely friends. Those elves who remember other ways may not protest - they already know the Valar refuse to be moved on this matter - but they give those who could not abandon their mates the protection of their silence, and they create enough doubt to prevent the Valar taking notice. (A nis may be friends with another nis and choose to live with her until such time as she finds a ner she wishes to marry. What of it if two neri share a house? Is there some reason why they should not?)

But unlike same-sex mates, Finwë, Míriel, and Indis find themselves in a bind- there’s no good way they can flout the decree of the Valar. As King of the Noldor, Finwë does not have the same degree of privacy other elves whose relationships don’t match the strictures of the Valar have, nor can he carve such privacy out for himself and his mates. There’s no plausible deniability for why the sister of the King of the Vanyar is constantly in the company of the Noldorin royal couple. It’s inevitable that sooner or later the elves who are not old enough to know differently will notice they are more than just friends in a way that no clever conversational segues will cover up. This is where it begins to unravel.

They eventually decide that since Indis, unlike Míriel, has a brother, she can better weather being separated from her mates for long periods of time. She goes with Ingwë to Valimar when the Vanyar relocate, and does her best to visit no more often than an ordinary friend would. Sometimes she slips, but for the most part she manages to stay away. Her brother is grateful for her assistance in his kingdom, and her young nephews are happy to have their aunt doting on them. It’s not ideal, and no one is happy, but it works.

The real problems begin when Míriel and Finwë beget their first son in Tirion. A pregnant elf requires as much support from their mate(s) as possible during pregnancy, since so much of their fëa and energy is being channeled into the creation of their child. But Míriel has only half of the support she should have, and bearing Curufinwë Fëanaro drains her to the point that she realizes another such pregnancy would destroy her. (Can a dead elf whose spirit has been wholly consumed return from Mandos? Do they even go there? And do all expectant mothers have such dark dreams? They didn’t even feel like they were hers…)

Finwë doesn’t entirely understand. He’s never been pregnant, and there is only so much Míriel can say or share with him given his lack of experience in the matter. She knows she’s asking him to imagine a country he has never seen and realize that the flowers are colored all wrong, and he’s trying his hardest. But he certainly understands missing Indis, because he does too. Without her to balance them, the scale has dipped so sharply that some days it feels like they’re flying off to crash into who knows what.

Míriel comes to the conclusion that she would rather defy the Valar than spend the entire lifetime of Arda pretending to be ok with this state of affairs when the reality is that none of them are. Indis is unhappy in Valimar, and if Míriel and Finwë are less unhappy, this definitely isn’t the bliss the Valar had promised. They were better off under the stars on the far side of the Sea. (She’ll wonder later if her rebellious thought had been unknowingly passed to Fëanaro.)

But if the Valar insist on this stupidity, Míriel doesn’t have to make it easy for them. Her retreat to Mandos is a form of protest - and she knows perfectly well that Finwë and Indis will certainly marry in her ‘absence’. She expects she will be able to return at some point - as elves who died before the Journey are expected to do also - and if the Valar don’t like elves having two wives or two husbands, or a wife and a husband, it will be too darn bad.

The problem none of them foresaw was the ruling of the Valar that elven marriage being for the lifetime of Arda, an elf could only remarry if their dead mate did not intend to return to life - ever. This went beyond just Míriel, Finwë, and Indis, because Míriel wasn’t the only dead elf whose living mate had taken another mate. (Nevermind that Míriel had taken that mate, too, and long before they’d ever met a Vala.) This she hadn’t expected, but she had little choice - if she agreed to return to life, Indis would be forever alone, and the damage still done to those already in Mandos whose mates had remarried. Eventually Míriel brokers a compromise with the Valar - those whose mates remarried before this ruling will not be confined to Mandos for something their mate did in ignorance. But she’s stuck for it.

What she didn’t realize until much later was the fracture lines the so-called Doom of Manwë created among the Noldor. (She’s darkly amused that it was later renamed the Statue of Finwë and Míriel as if the Valar had nothing to do with it.) By this point, the majority of the Noldor were descendants of the original elves, either begotten on the Journey or in Aman. They don’t remember the days before the Hunter and the disappearances, or the time when the elves governed themselves as seemed right to them. Many know the Journey only as stories their parents or even grandparents told them. They have no idea that Indis has a long-standing relationship with Finwë, they see only her usurping their Queen’s place, and they resent her for it.

When Finwë’s spirit comes to Mandos, broken in more ways than one, Míriel is shocked - and furious. This is twice the Valar’s failings have done serious damage to her mates and her family, and she is in no mood to forgive as she holds him for the first time in long Valian years and he relates to her between shuddering sobs what has transpired in her absence.

Yet when Mandos offers her the chance to return to life, to let Finwë take her place as the one who remains in his Halls for all time, she cannot refuse. Not when Finwë is all but demanding she accept, that she finally be reunited with Indis.

The life she returns to is not at all what she’d expected. Indis was no better off than Finwë - actually, she is much worse, for she has not only lost both her mates to death, by this time she also knew Fëanor, Ambarussa Umbarto, and Arakano to be dead as well. The first few years of her second life Míriel spends nursing her mate back to some semblance of health (and restraining her fury at the Valar.)

If Indis’ remaining daughter notices - and it’s possible she doesn’t, for when Míriel can spare a thought from her mate, it occurs to her that their eldest daughter looks like her spirit may be straining to reach the quiet numbness of the Halls - she says nothing. (What is there to say when Míriel is the one person who has made her mother smile since her father’s death?) 

It is only when Indis at long last begins to speak and move as a living elf rather than one half-dead that Míriel can cast her mind about for what to do. She had no mind to return to living in Tirion, not when the King’s House was nothing but pain to Indis, and even her own workshop was a quiet reproach, taken up as it was with the work of a grandson she has never met.

That was what gave her the idea. Her talent was unparalleled among the elves, and it had long been said that the only one who surpassed her was Vairë…

“But why do you wish to enter my service?” the Valie asked, as uneasy as Míriel has even seen one of them since the ruling on her marriage.

“You record the story of the world,” Míriel replied steadily. “If I cannot know my children and their children, I would at least know their deeds.”

She silently surveyed the Weaver’s discomfort - and through her, that of her mate the Judge. Had the Valar never before had to face the consequences of their own decrees?

If she did not often enjoy her work - so little joy, so many tears - at least she got to know her children and grandchildren, and was able to tell Indis, however belatedly, how they were faring on the Shores they had foolishly left behind so long ago.


End file.
